


Call Me

by Shi_Toyu



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Explanations, Gen, Lack of Communication, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_Toyu/pseuds/Shi_Toyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My explanation for Tony's absence during Captain America: The Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this the night of the premier, actually, but just never got around to posting it. My then-beta cautioned it against it. Eh. Who cares.

Tony Stark couldn't help it. He was starting to get a little insulted. Sure, Cap could say it 'wasn't personal' all he wanted, but it seriously felt that way. Every time something happened, Tony was always the last person to find out about it.

Fury gets attacked in the streets and killed? No need to tell Tony. He's probably got cameras everywhere. He already knows.

The funeral's on Sunday? Don't shoot a memo Tony's way. He didn't show up cause he can't take anything seriously.

There's an encryption on the file you need to get into to figure out what's going on? Don't know how Tony could possibly be able to help with that.

SHIELD's been infiltrated by HYDRA? Better keep Tony in the dark. He only funds about half of their projects.

Oh, wait, now there's evidence that HYDRA had a hand in killing his parents? No need for a phone call there.

Need a place to lie low? Let's not get in touch with the guy who has homes kept all over the country and just helped you save the WORLD.

Skipping over the fact that Fury is now alive again, your new mission is to take down three helicarriers that are operating off of satellite signals? Not a word.

You see how Tony might start thinking there might be something more to it than Steve forgetting about the wonders of cell phones?

Well, lucky for the rest of the world Tony Stark had JARVIS monitoring Fury's vehicle. It was a side feature he'd thrown in on a whim when he gave it the other upgrades. He didn't pay it any active attention, but good ol' Jarv let him know right away when the initial attack had occurred. He'd been too far away to help, but it got him looking at things a bit more closely than before.

The real reason he'd missed the funeral was because he'd been too busy trying to figure out who had killed the man. At the time they were lowering the casket into the ground, Tony hadn't slept in almost two days and had spent the entirety of that time locked up in his lab. He hacked into SHIELD's secure systems and tracked the last of Fury's key strokes to find out what he was working on.

In all honesty, it probably should have been harder to figure out what was going on. He had Fury's secret file figured out before the Captain and Natasha had even crossed over into New Jersey. He knew what the carriers were really for by the time SHIELD deployed the missiles to blow up the bunker and had started on counter measures by the time the other two had made it to that Falcon guy's place.

Captain would have known that if he bothered to pick up his phone.

Instead, Tony was forced to turn to the next best option, Agent Maria Hill. It didn't take long to figure out she knew more than she was letting on, but Tony didn't have time to deal with that. He left the chips in her care that would reprogram the carriers and told her he would handle the satellites. His suit was the only thing capable of getting to space that quickly and safely.

Before leaving, he activated Protocol Total Iron and turned over control of his suits to JARVIS in his absence. The suits would divide into teams of five to infiltrate and destroy the HYDRA bases around the world. They wouldn't be able to destroy them all at once, of course. He didn't have enough suits for that, but they would be able to make a serious dent before Tony got back from outer space. (He was really glad he'd managed to perfect that function during his last trip to Japan.)

So, while Steve and his rag tag band were busy getting arrested and then breaking into SHIELD, Tony was zipping from satellite to satellite, reprogramming or ripping out cords as needed. The satellites specific to SHIELD, Tony had no qualms about destroying. He wasn't planning on cutting off HYDRA's head, he was planning to take it to pieces and then burn it to the ground. The public satellites, he simply changed the coding on them so the carriers wouldn't be able to exchange information with them.

For a plan that had been in the works for so long, it was relatively easy to take apart. HYDRA had left enough loopholes there for Tony to drive a truck through. He was really kind of surprised they'd managed to last so long with these poor planning skills.

With the satellites taken care of, Tony headed back to Earth. It was only upon returning that he learned Nick Fury was still alive, Steve's old friend Bucky was still alive, and just about everyone else connected to this scheme was dead. Really they couldn't keep one guy alive to try and figure out how deep this went.

Good thing Tony had already run a sweep of SHIELD's employee files, as well as their known associates. (He'd had to dig deep for that one.) JARVIS wasn't done with it yet, but it was only a matter of hours before he had a list of names to investigate, ranked by priority. In the meantime, he had his personal medical team take over for the Captain's recovery. No way was he letting something slip through his radar at this stage.

He was waiting for the Cap the wake up again when he got the alert on his phone from his suits. The various assaults on HYDRA locations around the world had been successful, with only a few escapees. The discovery of Loki's scepter, along with several other powerful weapons, was just an added bonus. The suits downloaded what information they could before destroying the facilities and transporting the items back to Tony's labs. They'd be safer there than anywhere else on the planet.

With that taken care of, Tony turned his attention towards finding Bucky Barnes, The Winter Soldier. Without HYDRA to squirrel him away in a lab, the man would have to be on the streets, and on his own. A quick run of facial recognition software on public security cameras found him in less than an hour. Tony placed a tracer on him and had JARVIS monitor his movements. It would be up to Rogers whether or not they went after him.

The genius stood and stretched when Sam entered the room. He made a mental note to build the guy a new set of wings as soon as he got a moment. For now, though, he'd been sitting for way too long. He extended a hand towards the man.

"Falcon, right? Tony Stark."

The man's hand shake was firm and confident, making the billionaire smile.

"I kinda got that. What can I do for you, Mr. Stark?"

Tony circled him, running a critical eye over his frame and making some mental calculations.

"I should be able to have a new pair of wings ready for you by the end of the week." He cocked his head to the side momentarily in thought. "Well, as long as there's not another plot to take over the world. Those are cropping up far too often lately."

"New wings?"

"Of course. Yours were destroyed in the battle, as I understand it." He paused before snapping his fingers and grinning. "Would you mind letting me see your cell phone?"

The man was giving him an odd look, but handed the device over none the less. Tony winced at its antiquated design. (Ok, so it was only about 6 months old, but it wasn't even a Stark phone.)

"Uh, sure."

Tony fiddled with the device for a few moments before handing it back.

"There. My private number has been programmed in. If he," he pointed at the slumbering Captain, "wakes up, call me. My medical staff will do it anyway, but I'd really like it if there was actually someone on the team capable of keeping me in the loop."

Falcon glanced between the phone in his hand and the billionaire.

"Where are you going?"

Tony paused in the doorway.

"I don't have time to sit around and wait for Sleeping Beauty over there to find his Prince Charming. I've got to go prep a statement for the media and get the legal team ready to defend Natasha in court."

"You're handling that?"

Bird Brain wasn't doing a very good job of keeping the incredulity out of his voice.

"Well, I'm apparently the only one around here capable of making a plan, so yeah. Seriously," his eyes flickered meaningfully to the man on the bed, "call me."

And then he was gone.


End file.
